Human skull found by Minnesota kayakers 8,000 years old, experts say

Native American officials will be given a partial skull discovered last summer by two kayakers in Minnesota after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years old.

The kayakers found the skull in the drought-depleted Minnesota River about 110 miles (180km) west of Minneapolis, Renville county sheriff Scott Hable said.

Thinking it might be related to a missing person case or murder, Hable shared the skull with a medical examiner and eventually to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon dating to determine it was likely the skull of a young man who lived in that area between 5500 and 6000 BC, Hable said.

After the sheriff posted about the discovery on Wednesday, his office was criticized by several Native Americans, who said publishing photos of ancestral remains was offensive to their culture.

Hable said the remains will be turned over to Upper Sioux Community tribal officials.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council cultural resources specialist Dylan Goetsch said in a statement that neither the council nor the state archaeologist were notified about the discovery, which is required by state laws that govern the care and repatriation of Native American remains.

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, said Wednesday that the skull was definitely from an ancestor of one of the tribes still living in the area, the New York Times reported.

She said the young man would have likely eaten a diet of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, rather than following mammals and bison on their migrations.